The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
“A Forgotten Poet” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
TIME AND EBB
“Time and Ebb” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
CONVERSATION PIECE, 1945
“Conversation Piece, 1945” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
“Signs and Symbols” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
FIRST LOVE
“First Love” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF A DOUBLE MONSTER
“Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
THE VANE SISTERS
Written in Ithaca, New York, in February 1951. First published in the Hudson Review, New York, Winter 1959, and in Encounter, London, March 1959. Reprinted in the collection Nabokov’s Quartet, Phaedra, New York, 1966.
In this story the narrator is supposed to be unaware that his last paragraph has been used acrostically by two dead girls to assert their mysterious participation in the story. This particular trick can be tried only once in a thousand years of fiction. Whether it has come off is another question.
V.N., Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories, 1975
LANCE
“Lance” is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).
EASTER RAIN
“Easter Rain” was published in the April 1925 issue of the Russian émigré magazine Russkoe Ekho, the only known extant copy of which was discovered in the 1990s. It was translated by Dmitri Nabokov and Peter Constantine.
THE WORD
“The Word” was first published in the January 7, 1923, issue of Rul’; Dmitri Nabokov’s translation appeared in the December 26, 2005, issue of The New Yorker.
Appendix
Following are Nabokov’s Bibliographical Note to Nabokov’s Dozen (Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1958) and his forewords to the three collections he published with McGraw-Hill, New York: A Russian Beauty and Other Stories (1973), Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories (1975), and Details of a Sunset and Other Stories (1976).
Bibliographical Note to Nabokov’s Dozen (1958)
“The Aurelian,” “Cloud, Castle, Lake,” and “Spring in Fialta” were originally written in Russian. They were first published (as “Pilgram,” “Oblako, ozero, bashnya,” and “Vesna v Fial’te”) in the Russian émigré review Sovremennyya Zapiski (Paris, 1931, 1937, 1938) under my pen name V. Sirin and were incorporated in my collections of short stories (Soglyadatay, Russkiya Zapiski publisher, Paris, 1938, and Vesna v Fial’te i drugie rasskazï, Chekhov Publishing House, New York, 1956). The English versions of those three stories were prepared by me (who am alone responsible for any discrepancies between them and the original texts) in collaboration with Peter Pertzov. “The Aurelian” and “Cloud, Castle, Lake” came out in the Atlantic Monthly, and “Spring in Fialta” in Harper’s Bazaar, and all three appeared among the Nine Stories brought out by New Directions in “Direction,” 1947.
“Mademoiselle O” was originally written in French and was first published in the review Mesures, Paris, 1939. It was translated into English with the kind assistance of the late Miss Hilda Ward, and came out in the Atlantic Monthly and in the Nine Stories. A final, slightly different version, with stricter adherence to autobiographical truth, appeared as chapter 5 in my memoir Conclusive Evidence, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1951 (also published in England as Speak, Memory, by Victor Gollancz, 1952).
The remaining stories in the present volume were written in English. Of these, “A Forgotten Poet,” “The Assistant Producer,” “ ‘That in Aleppo Once …’,” and “Time and Ebb” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and in Nine Stories; “Conversation Piece” (as “Double Talk”), “Signs and Symbols,” “First Love” (as “Colette”), and “Lance” came out first in The New Yorker; “Double Talk” was reprinted in Nine Stories; “Colette,” in The New Yorker anthology and (as chapter 7) in Conclusive Evidence; and “Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster” appeared in The Reporter.
Only “Mademoiselle O” and “First Love” are (except for a change of names) true in every detail to the author’s remembered life. “The Assistant Producer” is based on actual facts. As to the rest, I am no more guilty of imitating “real life” than “real life” is responsible for plagiarizing me.
V.N.
Foreword to a Russian Beauty and Other Stories (1973)
The Russian originals of the thirteen Englished stories selected for the present collection were composed in western Europe between 1924 and 1940, and appeared one by one in various émigré periodicals and editions (the last being the collection Vesna v Fialte, Chekhov Publishing House, New York, 1956). Most of these thirteen pieces were translated by Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with the author. All are given here in a final English form, for which I alone am responsible. Professor Simon Karlinsky is the translator of the first story.
V.N.
Foreword to Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories (1975)
Of the thirteen stories in this collection the first twelve have been translated from the Russian by Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with the author. They are representative of my carefree expatriate tvorchestvo (the dignified Russian word for “creative output”) between 1924 and 1939, in Berlin, Paris, and Mentone. Bits of bibliography are given in the prefaces to them, and more information will be found in Andrew Field’s Nabokov: A Bibliography, published by McGraw-Hill.
The thirteenth story was written in English in Ithaca, upstate New York, at 802 East Seneca Street, a dismal grayish-white frame house, subjectively related to the more famous one at 342 Lawn Street, Ramsdale, New England.
V.N., December 31, 1974, Montreux, Switzerland
Foreword to Details of a Sunset and Other Stories (1976)
This collection is the last batch of my Russian stories meriting to be Englished. They cover a period of eleven years (1924–1935); all of them appeared in the émigré dailies and magazines of the time, in Berlin, Riga, and Paris.
It may be helpful, in some remote way, if I give here a list of all my translated stories, as published, in four separate volumes in the U.S.A. during the last twenty years.
Nabokov’s Dozen (New York, Doubleday, 1958) includes the following three stories translated by Peter Pertzov in collaboration with the author:
1. “Spring in Fialta” (Vesna v Fial’te, 1936)
2. “The Aurelian” (Pil’gram, 1930)
3. “Cloud, Castle, Lake” (Oblako, ozero, bashnya, 1937)
A Russian Beauty (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1973) contains the following thirteen stories translated by Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with the author, except for the title translated by Simon Karlinsky in collaboration with the author:
4. “A Russian Beauty” (Krasavitsa, 1934)
5. “The Leonardo” (Korolyok, 1933)
6. “Torpid Smoke” (Tyazhyolyy dym, 1935)
7. “Breaking the News” (Opoveshchenie, 1935)
8. “Lips to Lips” (Usta k ustam, 1932)
9. “The Visit to the Museum” (Poseshchenie muzeya, 1931)
10. “An Affair of Honor” (Podlets, 1927)
11. “Terra Incognita” (same title, 1931)
12. “A Dashing Fellow” (Khvat, 1930)
13. “Ultima Thule” (same title, 1940)
14. “Solus Rex” (same title, 1940)
15. “The Potato Elf” (Kartofel’nyy el’f, 1929)
16. “The Circle” (Krug, 1934)
Tyrants Destroyed (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1975) includes twelve stories translated by Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with the author:
17. “Tyrants Destroyed” (Istreblenie tiranov, 1938)
18. “A Nursery Tale” (Skazka, 1926)
19. “Music” (Muzyka, 1932)
20. “Lik” (same title, 1939)
21. “Recruiting” (Nabor, 1935)
22. “Terror” (Uzhas, 1927)
23
24. “A Matter of Chance” (Slucbaynost’, 1924)
25. “In Memory of L. I. Shigaev” (Pamyati L. I. Shigaeva, 1934)
26. “Bachmann” (same title, 1924)
27. “Perfection” (Sovershenstvo, 1932)
28. “Vasiliy Shishkov” (same title, 1939)
Details of a Sunset (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1976) contains thirteen stories translated by Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with the author:
29. “Details of a Sunset” (Katastrofa, 1924)
30. “A Bad Day” (Obida, 1931)
31. “Orache” (Lebeda, 1932)
32. “The Return of Chorb” (Vozvrashchenie Chorba, 1925)
33. “The Passenger” (Passazhir, 1927)
34. “A Letter That Never Reached Russia” (Pis’mo v Rossiyu, 1925)
35. “A Guide to Berlin” (Putevoditel’ po Berlinu, 1925)
36. “The Doorbell” (Zvonok, 1927)
37. “The Thunderstorm” (Groza, 1924)
38. “The Reunion” (Vstrecha, 1932)
39. “A Slice of Life” (Sluchay iz zhizni, 1935)
40. “Christmas” (Rozhdestvo, 1925)
41. “A Busy Man” (Zanyatoy chelovek, 1931)
V.N., Montreux, 1975
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Dmitri Nabokov was born in 1934 in Berlin and came to the United States as a young child with his parents. He graduated from Harvard, served in the U.S. Army, and then began the vocal studies that led him to become an opera and concert performer (as a basso) around the world. He has translated most of his father’s Russian short stories and plays and many of his novels into English.
BOOKS BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV
* * *
ADA, OR ARDOR
Ada, or Ardor tells a love story troubled by incest, but is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72522-0
BEND SINISTER
While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, Bend Sinister is first and foremost a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man and his child caught up in the tyranny of a police state.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72727-9
DESPAIR
Extensively revised by Nabokov in 1965, thirty years after its original publication, Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann, a man who undertakes the perfect crime: his own murder.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72343-1
THE ENCHANTER
The Enchanter is the precursor to Nabokov’s classic novel, Lolita. At once hilarious and chilling, it tells the story of an outwardly respectable man and his fatal obsession with certain pubescent girls.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72886-3
THE EYE
The Eye is as much farcical detective story as it is a profoundly refractive tale about the vicissitudes of identities and appearances. Smurov is a lovelorn, self-conscious Russian émigré living in prewar Berlin who commits suicide after being humiliated by a jealous husband, only to suffer greater indignities in the afterlife.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72723-1
THE GIFT
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period of his literary career. It is the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré who dreams of the book he will someday write.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72725-5
GLORY
Glory is the wryly ironic story of Martin Edelweiss, a young Russian émigré of no account, who is in love with a girl who refuses to marry him. Hoping to impress his love, he embarks on a “perilous, daredevil” project to illegally reenter the Soviet Union.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72724-8
INVITATION TO A BEHEADING
Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world; in an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for “gnostical turpitude.”
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72531-2
KING, QUEEN, KNAVE
Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a men’s clothing store, is ruddy, self-satisfied, and masculine, but repugnant to his exquisite but cold middle-class wife, Martha. Attracted to his money but repelled by his oblivious passion, she longs for their nephew instead.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72340-0
LOLITA
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous and controversial novel, tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72316-5
LOOK AT THE HARLEQUINS!
Nabokov’s last novel is an ironic play on the Janus-like relationship between fiction and reality. It is the autobiography of the eminent Russian-American author Vadim Vadimovich N. (b. 1899). Focusing on the central figures of his life, the book leads us to suspect that the fictions Vadim has created as an author have crossed the line between his life’s work and his life itself.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72728-6
THE LUZHIN DEFENSE
As a young boy, Luzhin is unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen—an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge, and rises to the rank of grandmaster, but at a cost: in Luzhin’s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants reality.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72722-4
PALE FIRE
Pale Fire offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreward and commentary by Shade’s self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72342-4
PNIN
Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is the focal point of subtle academic conspiracies he cannot begin to comprehend, yet he stages a faculty party to end all faculty parties forever.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72341-7
THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT
Many knew of Sebastian Knight, distinguished novelist, but few knew of the two love affairs that so profoundly influenced his career. After Knight’s death, his half brother sets out to penetrate the enigma of his life, starting with clues found in the novelist’s private papers.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-679-72726-2
SPEAK, MEMORY
Speak, Memory is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov’s life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works.
Autobiography/Literature/978-0-679-72339-4
ALSO AVAILABLE
The Annotated Lolita, 978-0-679-72729-3
Laughter in the Dark, 978-0-679-72450-6
Lolita: A Screenplay, 978-0-679-77255-2
Mary, 978-0-679-72620-3
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, 978-0-679-72997-6
Strong Opinions, 978-0-679-72609-8
Transparent Things, 978-0-679-72541-1
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Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
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